Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap

Frenkie to United?


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Cassidy

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It’s a huge budget but nowhere near enough to close the gap significantly on City and Liverpool. In that sense it doesn’t matter that it is huge, it is in fact tiny in comparison to what is needed. A fact we need to accept.

What concerns me is not the amount but how it is spent and on whose say so.
That isn’t true. What budget did Liverpool use to close the gap on City?
 

JPRouve

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It’s a huge budget but nowhere near enough to close the gap significantly on City and Liverpool. In that sense it doesn’t matter that it is huge, it is in fact tiny in comparison to what is needed. A fact we need to accept.

What concerns me is not the amount but how it is spent and on whose say so.
It does matter and it's a fundamental mistake that people make, the refusal to accept that you generally don't get where you want to be in a single step. The fact that it's a huge budget means that the process should be faster than it would for most teams with the same goals, it means that we actually have a chance to close the gap with currently better teams.

Yes it's not enough if your timeline is to be the equal to City or Liverpool by September but is that a sensible goal? It clearly isn't reasonable and nothing should be judge on the base of unreasonable expectations.
 

pacifictheme

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That isn’t true. What budget did Liverpool use to close the gap on City?
Well they did break the transfer record for a goalkeeper, defender and spent a lot of money on keita too. They haven't operated on a shoe string. They just managed to have almost every transfer work really well for them. Basically everything came together and they are still second best.
 

DJ_21

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How many pages do we think we’re gonna reach before a deals agreed? :lol:
 

JPRouve

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That isn’t true. What budget did Liverpool use to close the gap on City?
They used 3 or 4 years and more than 400m€ gross spendings. So probably less than what we intend to spend.
 

OrcaFat

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It does matter and it's a fundamental mistake that people make, the refusal to accept that you generally don't get where you want to be in a single step. The fact that it's a huge budget means that the process should be faster than it would for most teams with the same goals, it means that we actually have a chance to close the gap with currently better teams.

Yes it's not enough if your timeline is to be the equal to City or Liverpool by September but is that a sensible goal? It clearly isn't reasonable and nothing should be judge on the base of unreasonable expectations.
Pretty much true. But small, big and huge are relative terms. Many clubs have spent much more in a single window, many clubs will never spend that much in all their years of existence.

Let’s just spend what we’ve got the right way. And let’s try and close the gap over a few windows. You never know.
 

Sparky Rhiwabon

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It is relative to how bad our squad is, and how much players cost in the current market. Every half decent player costs us £50m and has done for years.

We've lost 2 CM's from an already weak midfield and it's looking unlikely we'll get a DM alongside De Jong. We only have 3 senior attacking players currently. The less said about our awful defence the better (although I suppose we're fine on pure numbers, it's just quality that is the issue).

I suppose you can argue the damage was done in previous windows and it's not that our budget is low this summer, it's just not enough to fix 9 years worth of terrible transfer dealings. But in the spirit of the discussion, the budget is tight relative to what we need.
The worry is, even if we get De Jong, he’s just replacing Pogba - who was also a world class player in other settings and with a decent midfield around him - France and Juve - but struggled to do it with us as he was playing with dross and having to try and do it all himself. The same will happen with De Jong unless we give him a decent partner.
 

OrcaFat

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That isn’t true. What budget did Liverpool use to close the gap on City?
Okay, I’m a United fan and I want us to close the gap. If we spend the money right, it could be done but last time we spent that kind of dollar (12 months ago) it didn’t go too well.
 

Sandikan

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That isn’t true. What budget did Liverpool use to close the gap on City?
They had the fortune of one of the most dodgy deals of all time, 140m for Coutinho!

Fused with having a manager who got the keys signings all spot on.
 

Livewire1974

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So what positions is sufficient to get top 4 for you then
Manager and a coach responsible for defending. I hope these are sorted.

We now obviously need a striker or 2, plus a midfielder. A central defender would be on my list, but we might be ok if Maguire gets his act together under the new regime.
 

big rons sovereign

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Yeah only time I thought that might happen was when we got the yellow ticker on SSN, went nowhere after that much like that Gundogan to Utd stuff around the same time as well
Didn't realise it went that far, or don't remember it.
I just figured it was Bollox from the start and ignored it.
 

Sandikan

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Forgot about that Ramos saga :lol:
That's why it's pathetic when people declare the De Jong transfer the worst, most tedious saga we've had.

When Sancho stretched for over a year, Maguire took ages, the Ramos and Fabregas wild goose chases, and countless others.
Not even in the top 10.
 

big rons sovereign

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That's why it's pathetic when people declare the De Jong transfer the worst, most tedious saga we've had.

When Sancho stretched for over a year, Maguire took ages, the Ramos and Fabregas wild goose chases, and countless others.
Not even in the top 10.
Vidal and thiago.
 

croadyman

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Manager and a coach responsible for defending. I hope these are sorted.

We now obviously need a striker or 2, plus a midfielder. A central defender would be on my list, but we might be ok if Maguire gets his act together under the new regime.
Only way a striker becomes a possibility this window is Ronny leaving
 

VP89

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That's why it's pathetic when people declare the De Jong transfer the worst, most tedious saga we've had.

When Sancho stretched for over a year, Maguire took ages, the Ramos and Fabregas wild goose chases, and countless others.
Not even in the top 10.
Its not about the length alone. I find De Jong one of the most tedious for other reasons.
 

croadyman

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The worry is, even if we get De Jong, he’s just replacing Pogba - who was also a world class player in other settings and with a decent midfield around him - France and Juve - but struggled to do it with us as he was playing with dross and having to try and do it all himself. The same will happen with De Jong unless we give him a decent partner.
Yeah amazes me more can't see that we still need to sign a midfield partner
 

JPRouve

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That's why it's pathetic when people declare the De Jong transfer the worst, most tedious saga we've had.

When Sancho stretched for over a year, Maguire took ages, the Ramos and Fabregas wild goose chases, and countless others.
Not even in the top 10.
Strangely enough people forget that Berbatov transfer was very long. The last years have seemingly created a lot of impatience.
 

JPRouve

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The worry is, even if we get De Jong, he’s just replacing Pogba - who was also a world class player in other settings and with a decent midfield around him - France and Juve - but struggled to do it with us as he was playing with dross and having to try and do it all himself. The same will happen with De Jong unless we give him a decent partner.
It's true but the hope is that ETH won't be like Mourinho or Ole, that he will put a larger emphasis on team chemistry and complementarity, it needs to be said that almost all our issues come from our managers shortcomings.
 

ThinkTank@Cafe

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It has to be him. He is the best player in the world in the role non existent in our club since Carrick retired. We never fixed this problem.
 

Red the Bear

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That's why it's pathetic when people declare the De Jong transfer the worst, most tedious saga we've had.

When Sancho stretched for over a year, Maguire took ages, the Ramos and Fabregas wild goose chases, and countless others.
Not even in the top 10.
It would rank among one of the better ones if we finalize it before the pre season.
 

Cassidy

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Well they did break the transfer record for a goalkeeper, defender and spent a lot of money on keita too. They haven't operated on a shoe string. They just managed to have almost every transfer work really well for them. Basically everything came together and they are still second best.
Yet we spent more than them
 

Josep Dowling

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It has to be him. He is the best player in the world in the role non existent in our club since Carrick retired. We never fixed this problem.
Expectations like that is why so many players fail at United. If we buy him and no other players join the first 11 is still weak. He’s not suddenly going to turn around our fortunes.
 

Cassidy

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They had the fortune of one of the most dodgy deals of all time, 140m for Coutinho!

Fused with having a manager who got the keys signings all spot on.
Yet we out spent them.
The main difference is the manager and the recruitment choices not the amounts spent.
 

Aeryis

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If those fees are true :lol: that's a lot of money for a player who ain't worth it IMHO
He's worth it. You're going to see it when our midfield goes from not being able to hold the ball to functioning properly, resisting press, and passing properly. You're going to see us building from the back and by the end of the season we'll probably rival City and Liverpool at building from the back. You have no idea just how much quality De Jong adds on the ball. He's superb.

The only issue that I'm worried about are the next midfield signings. Signing is pointless if he's passing to Fred and Mctominay.
 

AndySmith1990

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He's worth it. You're going to see it when our midfield goes from not being able to hold the ball to functioning properly, resisting press, and passing properly. You're going to see us building from the back and by the end of the season we'll probably rival City and Liverpool at building from the back. You have no idea just how much quality De Jong adds on the ball. He's superb.

The only issue that I'm worried about are the next midfield signings. Signing is pointless if he's passing to Fred and Mctominay.
I guess that's why we're after Eriksen too, so De Jong has a clever player available to pass to rather than looking for McTominay, who'll likely be hiding behind someone
 

NicolaSacco

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He's worth it. You're going to see it when our midfield goes from not being able to hold the ball to functioning properly, resisting press, and passing properly. You're going to see us building from the back and by the end of the season we'll probably rival City and Liverpool at building from the back. You have no idea just how much quality De Jong adds on the ball. He's superb.

The only issue that I'm worried about are the next midfield signings. Signing is pointless if he's passing to Fred and Mctominay.
I reckon there was a thread with people saying much the same with Van De Beek
 

Bogga

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Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm sure the club would want to give me a nice present... It'll be a done deal tomorrow :)
 

Lebo

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I see all the talk on United needing to sign so many players. Unlike majority here I still believe in some of our players and weird enough I still respect Ralf too but not for his opinion on this one. Signing players for the sake of it has never solved anyones problems.

Look at Chelsea with Tammy Abraham and Giroud . Everyone thought they were upgrading with Lukaku and Werner but they were wrong. Same with Mount and Ziyech or Pulisic.
You can say the same about Sancho so far who hasn’t yet proven to be better than Rashford in this United team.

Don’t get me wrong I would love signings but coaching this team is far more important than any recruitment

This team needs to be coached. Shaw, Maguire , Bailly, Fred, Fernandez Ronaldo, Rashford, Sancho and possibly FDG can’t be a mid table team. Most of us are struggling to come up with Names that will outright improve our first 11.
 
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